


The Destruction and Ascension of Aburame Shino

by ifthereisaZuknowitsME



Category: Naruto
Genre: Absurd Fiction, Extreme Body Gore, Gen, Horror, One Shot, Warning: Trypophobia, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:01:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25550953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifthereisaZuknowitsME/pseuds/ifthereisaZuknowitsME
Summary: Between the fungal folds of parasitic madness, Shino has never felt so delirious. And such soul-crushing despair.
Relationships: Aburame Shino & Inuzuka Kiba
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	The Destruction and Ascension of Aburame Shino

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys had taken heed of the tags.

“If all the tailed beasts gather together and blast the nations to smithereens, from the wasteland of the aftermath, cockroaches will reign as apex predators - as always.” His cousin murmurs from beneath his armor of scurrying creatures. 

The thick brown shells jostle one another, their brushy legs scampering to get hold of his skin. Few have accomplished the task of burying their bodies underneath him, disturbing the residential Kikaichū. Shino stands at the doorway of the third sub-basement, silent. His cousin detest people who have the gall to interrupt one of his grandiose speeches extolling the virtues of insects. He presses the neck of his coat farther up to the bridge of his nose. The floor is littered with droppings - and he has a feeling that it didn’t come only from the roaches.

“ _Kumamushi_ can survive in the most extreme pressures. The frigid regions of Yuki no Kuni, the blistering heat of Sunagakure - they will endure. The mountain with the highest peak in Kumogakure, the lowest subterranean depth of Kirigakure - they will make it their home. Embrace them close, and invincibility is within your reach.” His voice is becoming softer now, the rustling sounds overpowering him. “It is contemptible that the clan isn’t harvesting them. A mistake. They’ll see.” 

Shino quirks his lips downward. Many times his father would caution him about the danger of mingling the body with uncontrollable insects, the danger of overwhelming the host with various parasites. Cockroaches bend to the constant, wheedling pangs of hunger, nothing else matters. Least of all humans. 

He leaves the house and reports to his father that Aburame Ko, the clan’s resident fanatic, is a lost cause.

The next day, some of his clan members force his cousin to the clan's clinician. He is prohibited from all insects, even the life-sustaining kikaichū. 

From afar, he looks at the way his body fell apart in clumps of sinews and flesh; his body has become that much dependent on the insects as its tether. The contents of his stomach and ribs are bared to the world. One of the doctor’s assistants uses a scissor to cut the clotted amber of blood in which a bug is squealing in, little legs wiggling its way to freedom. Its body is like an eggplant. Shino thinks it is a larvae. He browses his memory for the name that he must have seen in the clan’s secret compendium of insects. 

His cousin thrashes against the ground as they delicately extract a louse from the tongue’s stub with scalpels. They drop her on a petri dish with a splat. His cousin’s blood sticks to her scales, dripping into the pool underneath the creature, thrashing just like her host. The color of her skin reminds Shino of a swamp.

Shino frowns. He must have been tirelessly cycling chakra to regenerate his flesh. An inefficient way of doing things. 

Balancing on Shino’s shoulder pad, a black ghost mantis peers at his cousin with his bulbous eyes. He crooks his head to him, antennas twitching. Smiling, he pets his head with his pointer finger. His body shivers a bit, so he sends forth a small burst of chakra to keep him warm. He hopes his little friend weathers through the stormy seasons coming up ahead. He glances back at his cousin.

The small dome, or, if one is being an elitist, the mud-hut, is cool and dry enough so that his body won’t quickly rot. However, Ko is unlucky that he wasn’t taken to the lowest level (the rumor floating around is that the village is performing an investigation for hidden ROOT tunnels.)

The refrigerated temperature makes it a prime condition for conserving the body’s freshness. 

Placing insects in such cold conditions is sometimes worrying, but the human body is the ideal place for them to take refuge in. Nutrients flow in from the circulating blood like plates of dishes on a conveyor belt, all there to sup on, and the steaming, high temperature is a sauna for the critters to muck about.

The doctor's loud command takes him out of his reverie. Someone fetches an ophthalmoscope. Shino leans to take a closer look. Ah, he did his eyes, too.

Overindulgence. The man deserved every single second of his consequence, for falling victim to the vice of weak-minded men. 

After that ordeal, the elders tasked him with putting back the insects in places he sees fit. He starts with the roaches first. The roaches Ko had picked out are stubborn, more than their regular counterparts - the types that bunks in certain corners in a home, and run wild at night. No, _these_ are a special hybrid. An intermix of the rotund sand roaches from Suna and the shinobi-bred forest roaches of Konoha. It would be erroneous to place them closely next to other breeds. They eat everything, and tend to be very messy, too.

He wonders which black market he had gone to, the exotic animal market he goes to doesn’t deal with bugs. He runs his finger down their exoskeleton; they’ll last for a millennia. 

Shino has to admit, his cousin’s taste is quite refined. He places them under his bed, in a glass container with the skinned head of a deer the Naras offered. He piles packs of dry-ice on top of it. Keep them cold enough from eating each other once they ravaged the skull.

The louse is next. He releases her in the river that passes by the Uchiha clan. He wishes her a farewell, and hopes that this time, the next home she seeks is in the mouth of a trout.

His father kept the larvae, so his errand has concluded. 

Shino can’t help but think of Ko, his body and his words. One fallible, and the other claiming sovereignty in his brain, wise and potent. No matter how much of an idiot he was, his ideas made some sense. 

He packs his bag for his next mission, which is tomorrow. 

\----

Humidity trails droplets of sweat down his spine. The Land of Hot Water is _not_ a favorite for his kikaichū, the comfortable heat amassed in his body is made suffocating in a muggy, hot place like this. He had to take off his jacket so they could calm down. 

Shino tracks down Kiba, his partner for the mission, who has been on the case for a day before him. His fleas, which are always, _always,_ on his dog, transmit their anger to him. Akamaru has been killing them off by jumping in the boiling waters. 

Kiba gives him a sheepish grin when he finally meets him, he sees his furrowed eyebrows. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

Shino replies with a sequitur, cooly ignoring his apology. “There is no reason why you should have asked for me on this mission. Why? Because humidity enhances a regular person’s sense of smell.” He wants to add more but seeing Kiba frustrated grimace, he decides to drop it. 

He raises his arm, palm rippling with chakra. Kiba opens his mouth. “I checked _everything_ , Shino. There’s not a trace…” Of the group of smugglers reportedly from Kumo; his mission scroll stated that they have stored weapons in the borders between Yuna, a neutral land, and Konoha, their number one military rival. Their job is to trail the smugglers and appropriate any weapons. “They even sent your people on this mission last month.” And they turned up empty-handed. He doubted it was their lack of capabilities, but still, nobody was able to crack it?

In a few seconds, the lines of his hand worm their way outward, they split and merge paths until dunes of whorls bulge from his pale skin. The dark lines deepen, and then dims. Clusters of little holes come to the surface at last. His skin puckers - and then gapes wide open for his fleas to pass through. Kiba makes a face, and quickly turns around, gagging. “I’ll never get used to that shit.”

It will take half a day for them to reproduce enough for the population to return to their original numbers. 

Kiba and Shino decide to spread out. They trade. Kiba gives him three of his nuke-nin contacts, and he sends him his beetles. He’ll cover the north, and Kiba south. 

The land is uninspiring to the eyes during a month that will dissolve to the scream of thunders. He spreads his beetles underground, and his cicadas take flight. Checking mines, warehouses, abandoned buildings. Hiding and spying on villagers. He had done it all in the next few days.

Nothing. He received the same news from Kiba via kikaichū. 

The Seven Gods of Fortune must have smiled down on him when he catches the site of a small village, if it could be called that. Eight houses, a shop, and shrine stretched far apart - it is exactly like his compound. He rummages through each of the buildings and finds that the occupants have left in haste. It looks like the village had been repurposed for something. But there are no indications of what happened to the original occupants. For a second, a thought rises to his mind about a large group of cultists. He orders Kiba’s dogs to hound down any scent of blood. 

His bugs are behaving fractious towards him. He had figured it might be the dense fog and unpleasant environment, but for the life of him, he doesn’t understand why, and that hurts his ego.

He wonders if the Kumo has somehow been messing up their internal tracking system through warping the electrical current sheet in a group. There must be a way that they have messed up the tracker team’s senses. 

After checking the inside of the shrine again, he sees a pair of eyes underneath a shrub. Crouching down, weapons readied between his fingers and chakra strings spanning the area, he examines the mysterious phenomenon - 

It’s an eyed elater.

Big and wide and _meek_. Why isn’t it clicking?

It - he, actually, takes a few steps back into the shadow of the plant, casting a menacing slant to the eyes on his back, never leaving him. He picks him up. Maybe this fellow is domesticated. He wants to communicate his thoughts to him, but he is wary that the bug might be from a shinobi. 

He has never seen one twice as large as his hand, and with a rustic red color as well. He would be stupid to deprive himself of researching this subject of curiosity. And it’s been a while since he has grown a hive of those, it is time to restart this particular obsession of his.

He doesn’t want to seal him away or hide him in his body, so he settles for putting him in an oversized pocket, and leaves the village for Kiba after implanting his bugs there in case something props up.

Kiba is talking to a man, a border sentinel of Konoha, he turns around, his face is unreadable. A strange feeling of nostalgia washes over him as he recalls of the Kiba who could be read like an open book. It is not a pleasant nostalgic tinge, either. 

They exit the thin-strip border and enter their homeland. The silence of the forest exacerbates the buzzing insects inside the shell of his body. The noise ricochets in his ear, therapeutic.

“Yamanaka sent an update on an intel a few hours ago. They confirmed an information leak on a clan.” A pause. “It’s the Aburames.” That can’t be good. Kiba laughs, throaty and wrong. “It seems like the number one secretive clan of Konoha is out of the bag. Damn those Kumo fucks.”

Shino frowns. “Did they explicitly articulate that it was them?”

“No. But if not them, then who?”

“Iwa. Suna. These nations are reasonable contenders.”

Another laugh. “No Kiri?’

“I said ‘reasonable contenders.’”

It’s been a long time since they have been apart as partners. More so as a team, Hinata was the first to separate from them. 

But even if he isn’t around Kiba a lot, he knows that Kiba is wrestling with thoughts and emotions too strong for him to handle. 

“Kiba...You are clearly disturbed. I am willing to lend you my ears.” He intones.

When he doesn't receive an answer he speeds up his pace ahead of him so he can look at his face. Distraught darkens his friend's features.

“Heh. It’s just, damn these Hyuuga guys are lucky to have those super-powered eyes.” He snorts. “Don’t why Konoha doesn’t just make a tracking team out of them, I guess that’s too lowly for the likes of the highly revered dojutsu dudes. I mean, c’mon. We basically failed a low B-rank mission, Neji never does. Hand this over to him.” He growls. 

“What am I sayin’ is - I just can’t understand why would somebody still have a weak personality when they have one of the world’s powerful eyes. I would _kill_ to have that power. Like, that’s why a fuckin’ prick like Sasuke was able to run off, he has the power to. Power given to him in his DNA.”

Shino sighs. It is this topic again, they have been on the opposite side of the fence since it was first brought up. He feels the frustration his cousin had shared leaking from between the seams of Kiba’s words.

Kiba continues uninterrupted, his voice reaching shouting levels, but he has enough restraint to not let that happen yet. “Yamanaka with their freaky mental shit. Sarutobi cheating with their multiple affinites. Nara with their stupid shadows. Naruto - Naruto.” He stutters, unsure where to lead with that.

Shino wobbles on his heels when he lands on top of a tree branch. He must have been exerting himself. Vague hints of reproach flashes by - and then, gone. Guess he has to return to stamina training. Again.

“Heh. And little ol’ me with dogs. It’s like I need some demon beast from the Impure Lands to level the playing field with the rest of the fucking nations. I - Man, I need to do the most just so I can have a fighting chance. What the fuck am I going to when I see a motherfucking Akatsuki? Roll over?”

He yells, finally. “I just want _power_.”

Power. Shino supposes that one can tell somebody reached adulthood when they yearn with an ache in their heart for power. The desperation for it eating their thoughts that makes up the shell of sanity - but when that’s gone. Then that’s it. They become Uchiha Sasuke who wants more and more and more - with their identity shrinking less and less. 

Power. Ko fell for that seduction. 

Power. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a taste of it?

He wonders if both Kiba and him have made it to the peak of their power. If so, then he rues the time of his descent, and that is the most relatable he has ever felt with his fellow peer, maybe the rest of humanity. Was Ko right to go to such extreme measures to reach a Hokage at the height of their power? He doesn’t think he ever heard the name of an Aburame whispered in the same vein as legends.

And his clan can do _so much_. But restrictions - not enough chakra to supply the bugs, pathetic amount of men. A teaspoon scoop compared to the large mounds that are the Akimichi and Sarutobi. 

They're the lowest on the scale of longevity. The Uzumaki and Senju ties in the first place.

Fear, a foreign, invasive intruder in the quiet garden of his mind, it chews everything in its path

The day he loses power, the day he is pushed off the acme of his skills, intellect, strength. He doesn’t know what he will do when it comes to that.

He loses his balance the second time. His body leaning dangerously over. Kiba stops. “Hey man, you good?” He hurtles forward, falling. “Wha- Shino!”

He kicks one leg forward, his sole driving through wood, splinters burst in a spray, and then he drags his other leg forward, stabilizing himself on the surface, fighting the momentum of exerting chakra and pulling away from _something_ inside of him that is _eating_ his chakra. The more he plies his feet with chakra, the weaker he feels, and then suddenly, his knees buckles. He falls once more.

His friend catches him mid-air. He chokes out, befuddled. “Were you watching me struggle on the tree for the whole time?”

“I just wanted to see what was the problem. You weren’t chakra exhausted before but _now_ you are?” He snorts. “It is usually you carrying me. How the tables have turned!”

A sharp groan breaks out of his mouth. Kiba gently lays him against the tree. He sighs, “Rest. I’ll send a message saying that we’ll be delayed by a day or two.” With Kiba gone, Shino rips his shirt from the neck to the middle of his sternum. In the concave of his collarbone, a tiny black head pops out, antennas fixed straight to alertness. He had to store his kikaichū in his legs so his mantis won’t try to prey on them. And he is standing on an air bubble in the subcutaneous fat, struggling to get out. Shino pulls him free from the layers of his flesh, and the mantis jumps off his hand, straggling into the distance. He watches his little friend with a frown.

He hears a rustling noise from his pocket, he takes out the eyed elater, and his heart stops in his chest.

It is dead, but it isn’t that that worries him. Millions of strands of fungi poke out of its body like organic pikes. His mind stirs in growing panic. It wasn’t big because it was born that way. It was big because it was _engorged_ , the plant matter stuffed it to brim. 

The eyes on its back have become congested with infestation, a shudder runs down his spine - no, it wasn’t a shudder. 

Standing up, he feels for the jut of his spine and inspects the hard, bump-like strands underneath the skin of his back, twisting around his spinal cord like weeds.

Kiba comes back to Shino staring at the tree. “Uh, you alright man?”

“I am fine. I am going to take a nap.”

“Me too. I scouted the area and found some berries you like, wan’ some?” He offers around the bilberries he is masticating, juices painting the corner of his lips.

Night came, Kiba went to sleep while Shino took over watch. The silent man grinds the oncoming shriek rising in his chest. Making noises and having his friend worry would be an irrational course to take.

Except it isn’t. His clan will execute him if his assumption is correct on the changes happening inside his body. He prays that he is wrong.

Using a heat sterilized senbon, he slices his arm open. The first wave of nervousness coupled with adrenaline hits him. Deft, gentle hands twirl the thin rod to hook it underneath a blood vessel, pink from pus and the parasite taken root in his cells. Cordyceps. Around the campfire on a night where scary stories are shared, Aburames would talk about that in hushed tones. The sticky spread solidifies his blood like a venom. It’s not any Cordyceps, either, if it affects him as well his insects. Vision getting blurry, the meandering strand extending to the back of his eyes, latching on his retinal veins.

He found the cause of his chakra exhaustion. He faintly wonders in the background of terror if he might chance upon a solution; he wonders when his logical psyche will fade away to the paralyzing emotions induced by the Cordyceps. His legs tremble, his beetles are dying.

He stands up, and falls back down, the hard contact rattles his jaw, cracking it open like a walnut. The fungus is sucking the nutrients out of his bone, the trench of his marrow, his blood, flesh, and - 

It will take half an hour for his body to become one with it.

His tongue unfurls into a flower. He squeezes his chakra so that there is but an inch left, it helps somewhat. He thinks he hears it hiss in rage. Kiba groans next to him, a scream comes next. He turns his friend flat on his back with shaking hands, the fungus seems to know the objective of his action and forces the strength in him. Kiba wildly thrashes on the ground, frothing.

Shino stands over, watching helplessly as the head of the fungus crowns his skull. He thinks, in the background that is the dark reality of his, that the plant made him the host. 

_Power, don’t you want it?_ The voice resounds in his body. It dumps adrenaline in his bloodstream, making him feel high. For a second, he almost believes that he wants it. Then that second pass.

Who would want to desecrate both their mind and body for power? That’s not a deal Shino ever planned on making with the devil.

 _Kiba..._ His friend murmurs now, shaking back and forth, mentally playing tug of war with the thing inside him. Shino knows he will lose. Bending over, he swipes his kunai at his neck.

The fungus cheers in his mind, and he doesn’t understand why, but then he looks at the immediate overgrowth burgeoning his friend’s dead body. Kiba became the eyed elater. The fungus growing out of his brain sends spores flying in all directions. Infecting would-be victims.

His legs move on their volition, and Shino tries to yell, to protest, but he is drowning in himself, overlooked by the new master of his consciousness. It pours loads of serotonin in his body, dosing him high on the newfound realization of his attained power.

His footsteps to Konoha is that of a man to the gallows.

**Author's Note:**

> Kumamushi - waterbears, tardigrades
> 
> I owe credit to two people:
> 
> 1\. /u/pass_the_sorce, for letting me borrow their idea
> 
> 2\. Jeremy Robert, the author of Extinction Journals, the premise of the book largely inspired me for the first bizzaro scene. I have gotten around to actually reading it after writing the first few paragraphs of this fanfic
> 
> Edits made on 7/30/2020


End file.
